It’s no secret that puzzle games are one of the most over-saturated genres on the App Store. With many classics like Helsing’s Fire and Squareball already on the marketplace, it’s fairly hard to tell what’s worth paying for.

Rinth Island is an enjoyable little puzzle romp, sold for a respectable double cheeseburger. But with literally thousands of puzzle games out there, is it really worth your time?

The basic gist of Rinth Island is similar to League of Evil, in that basically all you have to do is figure out how to get to a mystical talisman at the end of a stage. Along the way, you'll face a number of obstacles that you can manipulate, from boxes, to cannons, to ladders and the like. The game starts off fairly easy (as all puzzle games do), and just has you pushing boxes into holes at first, but it eventually ramps up to the point where you have to painstakingly conserve gunpowder blasts, in order to dig through certain areas of the level.

Currently there’s sixty levels in the game, each with three variations per stage – crystal collection, step limitation, and timed runs. The crystal mode is easily the most fun out of these choices, as it forces you to explore levels in ways you otherwise wouldn't have originally -- thankfully, all of these variants are optional, so you don't have to do stages over and over.

Levels are primarily vertical in nature, giving the game a “cavey” feel at times, which is neat. While you can utilize a touch based control scheme, I wouldn’t recommend it, as things aren’t very precise. Thankfully, Rinth includes virtual d-pad based controls, which work just fine.

One of the main issues about the game is while it looks and sounds crisp for an iOS title, the designs are fairly bland, and I just can’t see this as a memorable “brand”. Also, there are some fairly lengthy puzzles later in the game, and if you screw up one small part, you have to restart the entire level. As an old school puzzle player, this doesn’t utterly piss me off, but I can see people not wanting to waste their time on it, especially given the high amount of puzzle titles on iOS. Loading each level is also longer than your average wait time.

But, despite these shortcomings, the sheer amount of serviceable content makes up for most of these major issues -- especially for the price. Also, there’s also a built-in level editor, which is a pretty nice addition for a .99c App. Buzz Monkey also provides a number of in-app-purchases (IAP), but they’re fairly unobtrusive (thank God), as most of the marketplace contains items for aesthetic value only.

Puzzle fanatics can’t really go wrong at this price for Rinth Island, but if you’re not really a puzzle-head, you can probably hold out for something else.

timeline following:⇓ Rinth Island

Like Chris, I had my first taste of Oddworld when it was new, back on the PlayStation in 1997. Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus were two of my favorite titles from that era, so when Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty was announced, I was...more

I’ve really been delving into the indie scene lately. There’s a huge amount of games coming from smaller development studios, and I’ve found a few that really impressed me. When I heard that a “crime n...more

No, that isn't an encoding error up there in the headline: "htoL#NiQ" is indeed this PS Vita game's title, and is essentially a very stylish way to type "The Firefly Diary" in Japanese.
Whatever personal peculiarities led the...more